Developer plans hotel, apartments near Las Vegas Convention Center

Developer Daniel Grimm plans to build a hotel and an apartment complex, a rendering of which is seen above, at Swenson Street and Sierra Vista Drive in Las Vegas. DG Development Corp
Developer Daniel Grimm plans to build an apartment complex and a hotel, a rendering of which is seen above, at Swenson Street and Sierra Vista Drive in Las Vegas. DG Development Corp

A local developer is looking to build a hotel and an apartment complex near the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Daniel Grimm, founder of DG Development Corp., has laid out plans for a six-story, 250-room hotel at the southwest corner of Swenson Street and Sierra Vista Drive, and a 300-unit apartment complex immediately south of the hotel.

The Clark County Planning Commission approved project plans Sept. 19.

Grimm said on Tuesday that he aims to break ground on the hotel in August and on the apartment complex in February 2019. Both would take two years to build.

Construction of megaresorts is nowhere near what it used to be in Las Vegas, but at least a handful of new, smaller hotels — like the one Grimm envisions — are underway.

Also, the valley’s apartment-construction boom in the past few years has been almost entirely confined to the suburbs, although a small tally of projects, like Grimm’s, are closer to the core.

Grimm said his 2.5-acre hotel would have two brands under one roof: Hampton Inn & Suites would account for 150 rooms in the building, and Home2 Suites the remaining 100 rooms. Both brands are owned by Hilton Worldwide Holdings.

Grimm, who launched DG Development in 2011, is timing the hotel project with the Las Vegas Convention Center’s $1.4 billion overhaul.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority aims to finish the convention center’s 1.4 million-square-foot expansion in 2021. It then plans to renovate the existing 3.2 million-square-foot facility.

Grimm’s apartment complex, meanwhile, would span 6 acres, with units ranging from 458 to 1,229 square feet, county records show. He expects to charge an average of $1.50 per square foot in rent.

He said there “hasn’t been a whole lot of investment in that neighborhood” in recent years and that his target renters include UNLV students and resort-corridor employees. There also is “significant competition” among apartment developers in the suburbs, he said, and he wants to be “where everybody else is not.”

Grimm’s fenced-off property is vacant but used to have an apartment complex, and he’s not the first investor to draw up plans for the site.

Along with numerous other parcels in town, a high-rise condo development was supposed to be built there during the bubble years last decade but never came out of the ground.

By fall 2006, investors had filed plans for a four-tower, 904-condo project with nearly 62,000 square feet of retail, county records show.

The apartment complex there was demolished, but in 2011, after the economy crashed, Grimm bought the empty site.